1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to surgical equipment trays.
2. The Prior Art
Surgical equipment trays are available in a variety of sizes and are used to display, for ready access, the surgical equipment used by surgical personnel during a surgical procedure. Conventional trays are fabricated from metal, usually stainless steel, and cannot be economically disposed of but must be suitably cleansed and sterilized before being reused.
Surgical equipment trays are designed to be supported on stands which are placed adjacent the operating area in an operating room. One common tray is referred to in the art as the Mayo tray and is specifically designed to be supported by a Mayo Stand, and, more particularly, to nest within a framework on the Mayo Stand known as the Mayo Stand Ring.
Conventionally, a metal tray is prepared by having its flat base covered with a sterile cloth towel. The cloth provides the necessary absorbent surface and also partially attenuates noises made by contact between the steel instruments and the steel tray. A second sterile towel is hand rolled and placed on the covered tray to form a raised ridge. Sterile surgical instruments and equipment are arrayed on the cloth surface and elevated by the rolled towel ridge according to the type of surgical procedure being performed and the individual preferences of the particular surgeon. The ridge elevates the instruments to permit an orderly leafed array of the instruments for storage convenience and ready hand access of the instruments.
Cloth towels are useful for the foregoing reasons. However, cloth towels are also a source of lint which is undesirable for most surgical procedures and is intolerable for many types of microsurgical procedures. Additionally, cloth towels are not ironed and, therefore, form a wrinkled, uneven surface on the steel tray. Cloth towels also provide very little frictional resistance in association with metal trays thereby permitting the load of surgical instruments to readily shift about when the tray is moved or jarred. Furthermore, cloth towels require additional preparation time to suitably drape the tray surface and to roll as an instrument support.
In view of the foregoing, it is desirable to provide a surgical equipment tray which may be inexpensively fabricated from a nonmetallic, sterilizable material which has an absorbent surface incorporated on the tray. Desirably, the tray should include ridges and/or grooves in its base to provide rigidity to the tray and, coincidentally, provide instrument elevating and access features in the tray. Such an invention is disclosed and claimed herein.